A&E: Behind the Scene, March 17

Mar. 15, 2013

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Dakota Meyer, a student at the Iowa School for the Deaf, will represent Iowa next month at the national finals of this year’s Poetry Out Loud contest. He won the recent state championship with American Sign Language renditions of Henry Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” and Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Miniver Cheevy” and “Richard Cory.”

Iowa is one of the few states that includes students fluent in ASL. Contestants must translate the written text in a way that visually conveys its context and mood.

Puppets tell Underground Railroad story

Lots of places in Iowa played a role in the Underground Railroad, but West Liberty may be the only site where historians have documented the use of an actual train. The story of John Brown’s 1858 train trip across the state with a dozen escaped slaves, via the West Liberty depot, will be retold in a puppet show next weekend to celebrate the town’s 175th anniversary (the dodransbicentennial).

Mayor Chad Thomas and community volunteers will help the local Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre present “John Brown’s Journey” at 2 and 4 p.m. next Sunday, March 24, at the town’s Strand Theatre. $5. www.puppetspuppets.com.

Party planned for Borlaug's birthday

A party to celebrate the late Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug’s 99th birthday is set for March 25 at the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates. There will be free birthday cake from 11 a.m. to noon and a short talk by Ben Victor, the South Dakota sculptor who has been commissioned to create a bronze statue of Borlaug for the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. Victor will begin a two-week residency this Monday at the State Historical Building, where visitors can watch him work. (Read more Monday in IowaLife.)

The Hall of Laureates will open for tours from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 25. Van and Bonnie of WHO radio will broadcast from the building from 5 to 9 a.m., and the Food Bank of Iowa will collect nonperishable donations for the local food bank.